I. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to communications. More particularly the present invention relates to a system and method for programming a hands free telephone system.
II. Description of the Related Art
Hands free telephone systems do not require a user to pick up and hold the handset when the user is using the telephone. Thus hands free telephone systems do not restrict the freedom of the user and leave the hands of the user free to perform other functions at the same time. Because of this benefit, these telephones are becoming increasingly popular for use in offices and in cars as mobile telephones.
It is known for hands free telephone equipment to include separate, small sized, detachable and transferable equipment located outside the telephone. Hands free equipment often does not use the internal microphone of the telephone in order to avoid modification of the software within the telephone. It is well known for hands free equipment to contain only a microphone, an amplifier and a loudspeaker along with the amplifier for the loudspeaker outside the telephone. It is also known for hands free equipment to perform telephone functions such as compensating for background noise and recharging the batteries of mobile telephones.
Hands free equipment can also include advanced functions. For example it can perform the operations necessary for making or finishing a call such as off hook, dialing and on hook using voice recognition technology. However, the performance of these functions is subject to high cost, high power consumption and complicated formalities. Accordingly, it is customary for hands free telephone users to use a keypad on the telephone to enable off hook, dialing and on hook by touching the particular keys.
It is also known for hands free telephone equipment to include a controller within the hands free telephone equipment for controlling certain telephone operations of the telephone. The controller can include a controller data processor having a memory for storing data and command input, thereby permitting command data to be applied to the controller data processor and permitting the controller to control telephone operations. Hands free telephone equipment of this type can also include a data communication link for transferring data between the controller data processor and a programming data processor external to the hands free equipment. This permits data stored in the memory of the programming data processor to be copied to the controller memory. It is also known to use wireless communications for transmitting the data between the programming data processor and the controller processor. However, this greatly increases the cost of the equipment.